From Click to Conversion: Predicting What (and When) Customers Want Next

Performance marketing is increasingly a balance between psychology and precision, with marketers navigating rapidly between data and insights to land the right message at the right time to the right person, and then, of course, measure the impact. 

So how do marketers balance data signals with gut instinct to determine what is right for their audiences and ultimately meet business goals? During a recent MediaPost event, Jonathan Yantz, Managing Partner, moderated a panel that examined how to manage marketing with these blends of precision and behaviour in mind.

On the panel were:

• Katie Conrad, General Manager – Retail Marketing, Delta Air Lines 
• Sara Resnick, Global Marketing Lead, SEO, ASO, AiO, Western Union
• Brittany Gelsomino, Director of Growth Marketing, Humana
• Jonathan Yantz, Managing Partner, M+C Saatchi Performance (moderator)

You can watch the full panel recording here, read on for highlights.

How do you define success

The need to align with Leadership goals and outcomes was a strong theme among the panelists as they discussed defining success metrics. KPIs might differ across businesses, from LTV to conversion rates, from yield to average order value, but ultimately, most CFOs care about what converts and what is driving revenue. From a marketing perspective, that means success metrics that drive these overall goals. This is not always simple, for example, measuring the impact of content that drives website visits and time on site, but it is essential to be aligned with Leadership on goals, benchmarks, and reporting expectations.

Two other points were raised: first, that agility matters more than ever. For example, AI search share of voice matters now in a way it didn’t 12 months ago. Marketers must be prepared to adapt to external factors and internal drivers. Second, the panelists discussed the importance of always seeking learning from all activities. They advised building a mindset that fosters curiosity: ‘What did we learn about the customer that we did not know before, or that helps us improve in the future?’

Takeaways: 

• Align with Leadership on strategic goals
• Agility matters
• Revenue is always going to be fundamental to success
• Learnings matter ‘What did we learn about the customer that we did not know before’?

How to Balance Psychology and Precision

We all know how important human intuition is – sometimes campaigns just ‘feel right’. However, with performance marketing, everything is changing, and human intuition can be wrong. With this in mind, a test-and-learn strategy is vital and should be built into ongoing strategies, lasting years if necessary. 

However, the panel emphasized the importance of not ruling out intuition; data, after all, tells us what has happened and is happening in the moment, while intuition provides opportunities for creativity and therefore innovation. You need to have an educated guess to drive innovation, but it is rarely based on data alone. 

Takeaways:

• Challenge yourself and test a ‘prove yourself wrong’ mindset to foster innovation
• Explore linking testing, outcomes, and intuition to see what drives success.
• Building a long-lasting testing roadmap.

How to distinguish between noise and intent

In a ‘noisy’ world of data, how can marketers cut through and find intent signals that drive success? The panel discussed the importance of tying data back to the agreed-upon business outcomes. For example, time-on-site data could be misinterpreted as intent when, in reality, it reflects users dreaming about their next vacation or researching products without the immediate intent to buy. Marketers require analytical skills more than ever; with so much data available, analysis paralysis can become a real problem.

They advised being clear about which data is important to different stakeholders, and then building dashboards that piece the data together into a comprehensive story that informs whether business goals are being achieved. 

Takeaways:

• Having the right analytical partners is essential to prevent analysis paralysis
• Be curious – ‘noisy’ data can still provide insight, perhaps people are spending time on the site because they can’t immediately find what they are seeking
• Be clear on what is statistically significant for your business, and set benchmarks based on your business

Making data drive decisions and utilizing automation

The panel looked at the importance of understanding their audiences, such as developing detailed customer profiles, and then relating outcomes back to channels, while looking for statistically significant patterns. They touched on the importance of inter-team collaboration and, fundamentally, that any automation must be personalized and include human oversight. All the panelists counseled against being ‘creepy’, or too familiar, ‘we know you were looking at a specific product’ is just too personalized.

Takeaways:

• Always have to have a human eye involved, ‘if you see something, say something.’
• Automation fails when triggers are based on business decisions and not the customer
• Avoid any and all impersonal activity

Final thoughts from the panelists included:

• The next step in AI will be agent-to-agent optimisation
• AI will become standard, enabling teams to do more, data signals continuing to improve, and data leading to deeper strategies
• Propensity models based on behaviour will become the norm.

Thank you to MediaPost, Katie Conrad, Sara Resnick, and Brittany Gelsomino for their insights.